It is well known that in Mandarin Chinese (MC) nasal rhymes, non-high
vowels /a/ and /e/ undergo Vowel Nasalization and Backness Feature
Specification processes to harmonize with the nasal coda in both manner
and place of articulation. Specifically, the vowel is specified with
the [+front] feature when followed by the /n/ coda and the [+back]
feature when followed by /ŋ/. On the other hand, phonetic experiments
in recent researches have shown that in MC disyllabic words, the nasal
coda tends to undergo place assimilation in the V1N.C2V2
context and complete deletion in the V1N.V2 context.
These processes raises two questions: firstly, will V1
in V1N.C2V2 contexts also change in
its backness feature to harmonize with the assimilated nasal coda?
Secondly, will the duration of V1N reduce significantly
after nasal coda deletion in the V1N.(G)V context?
A production experiment
and a perception experiment were designed to answer these two questions.
Results show that the vowel backness feature of V1 is not
re-specified despite the appropriate environment, and the duration
of V1N is not reduced after nasal deletion. The phonological
consequences of these findings will be discussed.